Tangerine Dream
Kyoto
CD / 11 tracks / 65:33

It is a rather sobering thought that this album is, I believe, the bands 20th release (official, unofficial or unauthorised – depending on whom you are talking to) since 2000, and with at least another two releases contemplated this year these are expensive days for their fans. Inevitably output at these levels raises all sorts of questions about quality control. The author Stephen King was once told that if he printed his weekly shopping list (or some such thing), it would end up being number one in the best selling lists! Sadly the days when Tangerine Dream will appear at in the music charts at all are probably long gone – but you get my drift.

This isn't a Tangerine Dream album in the truest sense of the word in any event, it is in fact a musical collaboration between Edgar Froese and Johannes Schmoelling recorded in Japan during the bands first tour of that country in 1983. The sleeve notes tell us that "…due to controversies within the band…" the music wasn't either played live or released at that time, so here it is.

This isn't a bad album at all, but it is just so totally anonymous, bland and in parts very dated. Eleven tracks spread over an hour and to be honest, you'd be hard pressed to remember any of them. There is nothing here as memorable as Choronzon or the brilliant title track from the underrated Hyperborea. That said the intro to Chilly Moons, is particularly effective, with a very striking bell like sound over some moody synth work. Craving For Silence is an excellent piano driven piece ending up sounding like something that was used twelve years later as an inspiration for the material on Schmoelling's wonderful Songs No Words album. Cherry Blossom Road with its recurring piano motif reinforces this impression even more until some heavy - handed synth work ruins the piece.

Mad Sumo Yamoto is probably the highlight – squealing guitar over a very bouncy and infectious sequencer, but at just over three minutes it is way, way too short. The penultimate track, Last Train To Osaka is a lovely ambient piece, but again much too short.

This just about sums up the album overall, it would have been nice if the weaker pieces had been removed – the opener in particular sounds horribly dated – and the better pieces allowed to breathe and expand a little, and this brings me back to my issues over quality control. To be fair this isn't as bad as Stephen King's shopping list, and as yet I don't hear the sound of a barrel being scraped, but the release of this CD does nothing to alter my long held view that Tangerine Dream's musical reputation began to decline around the time Schmoelling quit them in 1985. On the evidence of this release however, it seems that their decline might have already started even then. (SJS)

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